How the Lexus meets the Olive Tree

When I was in uni for "Globalization and Justice" I read Thomas Friedmen's "The Lexus and the Olive Tree." I used to be a huge Friedman fan and have read all his books (my affections have since wavered). "Lexus" is about globalization, and how even in the Middle East where we're still warring over the Mount of Olives, people want to drive a Lexus.

Then I came to Cambodia. A Lexus is a status symbol. It's not about having a functional vehicle, it's about having a Lexus...and an iPhone. I'm almost certain that no one knows how to drive their Lexus, or they drive them like they're disposable in impassioned recklessness. There's no function in having a Lexus in Cambodia where cars are a liability. Perhaps this can always be said about access and materialism, but if globalization promotes such insanity, I can only shake my head.

The Olive Tree lives on in Cambodia. We have our own centuries old conflict. We're still massing troops at the Thai boarder to continue feuding about what's their's and what's ours. It's not the Mount of Olives in Cambodia, it's the temple Preah Vihear which is something of a gateway to Angkor Wat which is just as sacred as Jerusalem's Temple Mount. Cambodia and Thailand economically need each other, but that relationship is haunted by past legacies of occupation and completely dependent on each state being allowed to keep what they perceive as key cultural icons.

Thomas Friedman got something right with "The Lexus and the Olive Tree;" old conflicts which are strikingly set against the stage of globalization. Will lust for iphones and a Lexus prevail over old territorial disputes? Are economics the new determining factor, trumping cultures and traditional nation states? Well, this is how people like Friedman make money, writing books speculating over these realities. It's a globalized world. But which scientific law says that for every action, there will always be a reaction...